


A Plague on Both Your Houses

by TheGreatClockwyrm



Category: League of Legends
Genre: Alchemy, Assassination, F/M, Gen, Noxus, Subterfuge
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-06
Updated: 2016-11-22
Packaged: 2018-08-29 08:20:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8482351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheGreatClockwyrm/pseuds/TheGreatClockwyrm
Summary: Noxus, the most fearsome and powerful of Runeterra's terrestrial powers, has lain dormant for decades. Its shadowy and reclusive leader, the enigmatic Boram Darkwill, nears his three hundredth year of rule - a rule in recent years marked with decidedly less conquest and bloodshed. Combined with rumours of Demacian pandering, of chilling reports from the front lines of an undead monstrosity, and as the once-mighty Black Rose stirs from the shadows, Noxus teeters on the brink of total societal collapse.All changes when Boram Darkwill steals away in the night to Kalamanda, accompanied by a platoon of guardsmen. With the Grand General gone, and tensions rising between Runeterra's city-states, the Black Rose now has sufficient room to unfurl its petals. As Jericho Swain and the Black Rose take matters into their own hands, the shadow of an old foe hangs over Noxus, threatening to lead all to ruin.This is the story of Ebero Clemaine, the man who would both see a rule begin and become he who would snuff it out in its final moments.





	1. Prologue: Smoke and Mirrors

There was only one guard stationed outside the door. Black metal, as customary of furnishings in and around the capital. A steel knocker fashioned in the shape of a curling rose, the flower bent inwards on itself to form the ring with which one knocks. 

Nonetheless, the guard affixed the newcomer with a stare. It made eight years that he was first assigned to Jericho Swain's company, conquering the plainspeople who lived in the shadow of the Great Barrier. His mouth was a grim slash beneath a scarred and torn nose, dull armor to match his wit. A sharp pike, rain sliding down it like teardrops. The visitor smiled beneath his hood. Would that the guard weep, if he knew what it was that he was guarding behind the door. 

"And you are?" the guard rumbled, looking down at the visitor through the haze of rain. 

Pale, scarred hands reached up to remove the hood, slipping quickly back into the folds of the sleeves. The guard's eyes widened, and he stepped abruptly to the side, clearing his throat. "Apologies, commander. I did not reali-"

"No harm done, comrade." The guard pushed open the door, and the same pale spider hands pulled the hood back over the same pale, scarred head. Eyes like rubies shone from the shadows as the guard pulled the door closed behind him.

It was dark, the steps going down, lit only by torches of green flame. Alchemist's fire, once brewed in abundance in the dark dungeons of Noxus, both for illumination and its unique military applications. But ever since the incident near three centuries ago, the High Command had outlawed the practice and executed the House of Alchemists in the Ivory Ward District. The visitor mused quietly. What the Grand General didn't know wouldn't hurt him, especially since his mysterious disappearance. 

At the foot of the stairs the foyer branched into another door, this one bloodred, a large black etching of a rose carved into the scarlet wood. The visitor knocked thrice, before tracing a long, pale finger along the black outlines of the petals of the rose. 

The door swung open.

"I wondered when I would see you next, Jericho Swain. What new monstrosity am I bid to create?"

A pair of brilliant white eyes, rimmed with red, shone in the darkness, narrow and distrusting. The visitor smiled beneath both a hood and a covering scarf. A pockmarked hand shot out from the sleeve, yellow light pouring out from the fingertip. An orb of light floated up to nestle in a sconce, illuminating the room.

What black stone was visible behind the rows of shelves and worktables was cracked and marred with years of grime. Eyes, hearts, fingers, and worse floated pickled in jars of slime and mucus, outnumbered still by rows and rows of vials and flasks, wooden cups of blood, thick and red, too many to count - the walls covered in diagrams and sketches of the human form, grotesquely bent and cut open to reveal the arteries and veins within. A small cot laid unnoticed in the corner, crowded in as it was by its owner's strange obsessions. And in the midst of it all, legs crossed in a hard wooden chair, sat a pale man cloaked in red, his white hair lank and stringy over his pale and terrible face. A monstrous smile cracked that same face, and clawed fingers closed the book on his lap as he stood, tossing it into the shadows.

The visitor shrugged off his cloak, and the other blinked as he did so. As the pale, lashless lid opened back over the eye, it found a new sight - not the tall and slight commander of Noxus's main force, armed with a limp and a sneer, but a ravishing woman as cunning as she was scantily clad. Vladimir leaned back against the wall, metal talons lacing together. "An ambitious disguise to be limping about in, this late at night. You grow bold with our beloved General's disappearance. I suppose no Beatrice should have been my first indicator."

Emilia LeBlanc put a hand on her hips, eyes alight. "You ought not to speak of boldness, Vladimir. It was in part your  _boldness_ that drove us even further underground in recent years. The Fallowns still grieve their sons."

Vladimir moved over to one of his tables, sighing melodramatically. "The Fallown boys were foolish and arrogant. They brought their demise upon themselves.....Boldness has never been the Black Rose's modus operandi, and yet at times we all fall prey to its wiles. Most especially you, Deceiver. Your certain  _charms_ are not lost on the men of Noxus. And this is something you take great pri-"

"I do not have time for semantics. I have come with a proposition."

Vladimir turned, baring his teeth in another awful grin. "Oh how I love propositions. Especially yours, Evaine."

LeBlanc knew Vladimir only used that name to unnerve her, but she would not allow it to distract her from her goal. The singular guard and a flight of stairs were hardly the only things keeping the Crimson Reaper contained. While the two were both members of the Black Rose, and thus had aligned interests, LeBlanc knew that the man she was dealing with was more dangerous than virtually any other agent save herself. Her willing entry into the domain marked as his had now surrendered her to his power, and a most unsavory and vile of powers at that. The very air smelled of blood, piss, and death. 

"How do you know Darkwill is gone?"

Vladimir snatched a cup from one of the shelves, dipping a finger into its contents and stirring before popping it into his mouth, his white eyes aglow with delight. "Your master keeps me under quite the lock and key, but secrets are creative creatures; much like I. I have my ways."

LeBlanc hopped onto a table, dangling her long, ivory legs. Vladimir's eyes followed their swing, blood leaking from his mouth as he set the cup down, having drained its contents. LeBlanc simpered, flexing the fingers of one hand. "Regardless, Darkwill  _is_ missing, and so soon after that Demacian soldier in Kalamanda turned up dead in his cell. Should either Demacia  _or_ Kalamanda find out, this could prove troublesome. Add onto that the significant power vacuum that now casts a shadow over the High Command." Vladimir took another cup from the shelf, stirring it with a manicured finger. LeBlanc took a breath, blinking twice. "A full platoon of the Raedsei. A platoon!" LeBlanc scowled, twirling a strand of hair on her finger as Vladimir tracked the motion with soulless eyes over the rim of the cup. "Darkwill has been content to do nothing but sit on his throne for decades now. What has changed? This is foolish. Very foolish." LeBlanc looked Vladimir in the eye. "I am here to capitalize on that foolishness."

Vladimir raised a single talon, cocking his head. "Which of your lovers seeks to take power now? Swain? Keiran? Altrius? This news is old hat. Keiran is next in line, Swain has been after the position for years, and yet you cannot appease them all."

"I do not have to. I simply have to choose. Darius and the other lesser generals have begun to stir from their seats of power after only two days, but they are blinded by their duty to Noxus most of all. They will throw in their lot with whomever appears the strongest." She smiled evilly. "And you and I both know the Black Rose determines who that will be."

"Are you suggesting that we should abandon our good General in the very moment he has chosen to do the same to us? That is tantamount to treason."

"I am suggesting we pave the road to Noxus's future. Are you afraid of getting your hands dirty?"

Vladimir held his hands up to the light, inspecting the talons affixed to his fingers. He shrugged. "I suppose that would depend upon how dirty you intend for our hands to get."

"You created a monster for Darkwill. You shaped it, molded it, and now it wreaks havoc on rebel peasants and allied soldiers alike in the west for a savage mockery of warfare. The people murmur of Darkwill's necromancy, of his lethargy, of his ineptitude, but most of all his cowardice - he has not been seen on the front lines since he first stole away the throne from Pothas the Mighty near three hundred years ago. Perhaps - perhaps it is time for a new General to reign."

"There cannot be a new General without the death of the previous, preferably at the hands of the challenger in a formal duel. You and I both know thi-"

LeBlanc hopped down from her perch, moving to stand before him. "Vladimir, I do not have time for your playing of devil's advocate. It has been four hundred years since the Black Rose's fall from grace, and I will not see us languish another century more. The time has come for us to take matters into our own hands at last!" LeBlanc looked across the room at Vladimir. "We number among the last few of the Black Rose. Once we were many, and our power was feared across the continent. And now we are reduced to a half dozen magicians hiding in the basement." She pivoted, stalking back to one of the shelves, on which the eyes of Vladimir's victims gazed forlornly back at her from within their jars. "I will not see all that I have built go to waste when our triumphant return is so close." Tears threatened the Deceiver's eyes, and she bit her lip.

Vladimir moved to stand behind her, and reached across her shoulder to take down one of the jars. Inside a pair of eyes floated piercing blue in a translucent yellow soup. LeBlanc continued to stare off to the adjacent wall as Vladimir shifted the jar from hand to hand. "These belonged to a innkeep named Jerome." Vladimir sighs, tracing one metallic point against the glass. "His wife died in a plague, as it happens, as did one of his sons. But he had one other left to give." Vladimir laughed, and cracked the glass with his talons, yellow liquid dripping through his fingers as the eyes bounced down and rolled across the floor. LeBlanc didn't turn to look, but shuddered regardless, a single tear running down her face. "Before I took his eyes, I asked him about the plague that killed his wife and son. He said it came in the night, suddenly. Riddled with fever, and covered in boils, they asphyxiated to death early the next morning."

"The next morning...after what?"

Vladimir tsked. "Plagues do not start of their own accord. There must always be a vessel through which they travel. My hemoplague is but one example."

"Get to the point."

"I grew....impatient with Jerome. The boy told me the rest. Their pathetic outlying village had a visitor a few days before his wife and son met a sticky end - robed, masked, and powerful in dark magic."

"What are you saying?" LeBlanc turns to face Vladimir.

"Even if we could find Darkwill, not even the combined efforts of both you and I could hope to prevail against a full platoon of his elite guard. Where magic and trickery fails, what could possibly defeat a full force of Noxian might?"

Realization dawned on the Matron of the Black Rose. "A plague."

 

 

 


	2. A Patient Man

Let it not be said that Ebero Clemaine was an impatient man.

It made near two hundred and fifty years since he had last seen the sole surviving member of Noxus’s House of Alchemists. Declan Fortunus was an aptly named man. After the purge of Noxian alchemists near as long ago, there had only been two survivors amidst the flame, smoke, and gore – Declan, and Ebero himself. Normally, Ebero would not have deemed the House Fortunus one worthy of his seeking, but the circumstances had changed. Declan Fortunus was now a man who held Ebero Clemaine’s interest, and that made him a very important man indeed.

When the foolish Grand General decreed alchemy a cowardly and perverse art unfit for Noxian pursuit, alchemists of all skill and standing were rounded up for slaughter: impaled on pikes, burnt alive, drowned, and beheaded. The women among the order were carried off as slaves of conquest, the most beguiling and enchanting of which kept for the High Command. Ebero grimaced at the thought. Though he knew most of his order to be fools, weaklings, and worse, it still made his black heart despondent at the thought of so much ancient knowledge lost to the idiocy of men and their silly devotion to masculine conquest. 

Declan had hidden himself well, constantly on the run with his many vassals and underlings, but he was a foolish old man to stay in Noxus for as long as he had, Ebero thought. The Ivory Ward district was an even poorer choice. With the disappearance of Boram Darkwill several days prior, Noxus had been slowly losing its grip on order. The place was crawling with armored soldiers, and the ugly red banners of the High Command hung from every roof and steeple. Ebero knew he cut a conspicuous figure from atop the cathedral, even without the fine blue-and-gold robes he usually draped over his bony shoulders. He had traded his elaborate beaked mask for a scarf drawn over his pale, green-eyed face, and his spidery fingers clutched no skull-tipped staff. But this was of little consequence to him.

The snake-worshipping Fortuni had proved an elusive group. The house of the silver clover was an ancient one, spanning centuries of Noxian history. Before the purge, Declan had been known as the Silver Serpent, named so for his shimmering mane of silver hair and the cape of snake scales to match. Amongst the Grand Seven, the most powerful and influential alchemists in the High Command’s court, he was titled the Clover Sage, or the Sage of Silver, for his strange obsessions with both substances. As the search for the elixir of life grew ever more frantic amongst the alchemists and sorcerors of Noxus, it was the Houses Fortunus and Clemaine that competed most fervently for its discovery. Ebero smiled at the thought. Somewhere, Caello Clemaine was turning in his grave.

But at long last he had found them. Declan had covered his tracks well, but no man hid from the plague, least of which from its vessel. From atop his perch, the city of Noxus Prime sprawled out in all its martial glory beneath Ebero. Black smoke twisted and curled like the malevolent fingers of some great dark god hanging ominously over the city. Flames crackled, roared and spit in great towers of black stone, and the sound of a thousand forges hammering swords and axes into existence reverberated around the great and terrible city. A city built into the mountain, carved of black stone and red iron, terrible in its might and majesty. Ebero closed his eyes.

Scatters of conversation filled his ears. The sick and dying were not normally of a conversational sort, but all who laid with death were known to Ebero. Pleas, coughs, whispered declarations of love and worse crimes trickled across his mind’s eye. Ebero tuned them out, searching for his target.

_“You must eat, Ryn. To keep up your strength.”_

Ebero cocked his head. A woman’s voice filled his ears, soft and gentle. He smiled cruelly.

_“You….you are wasting your time….sweet sister.”_

Ebero had heard all he needed. From somewhere far off, a crow cawed. Shadows began to gather around his spare form, whirling faster and faster as Ebero dove off the building, relishing the feel of the wind whipping up his hood and coursing across his scalp. The instant before he hit the ground, he was gone.

 

* * *

 

Aria Fortunus set the bowl of broth down on the table. "You know as well as I do that I am not one to waste time."

Her brother smiled weakly from his sickbed. "Sw.....we.....sweet sister, you have always been k-k-kind." He sunk further into the pillows, closing his eyes. His breathing soon slowed, and Aria knew that he was asleep. She looked over at the table beside the bed, upon which now rested  _three_  untouched bowls of broth and cups of tepid water. She sighed, taking a seat at the foot of the bed and putting her head in her hands. Now that Father never left his study, and Tybalt was off playing soldier, it was up to her to care for her baby brother.

"Where is your father?"

Aria's heart skipped a beat as she jumped from the bed and drew her sword, a silver-tipped blade with a hilt shaped like a three-leafed clover. A stranger stood in the shadows of the room, arms crossed, his head wreathed in shadow. Aria gestured with the sword. "Who are you?" When the stranger did not immediately respond, she scowled. "You had best answer before I run you through with Three-leaves."

The shadow of the stranger's head cocked. "Only a fool names their blade."

"How did you get in here?”

The figure took several steps forward, but shadows still hid his top half. Aria brandished her sword, keeping it level with his, and by now she knew it was a man, head. She raised an eyebrow. "My patience is waning, stranger."

"Your brother will not live another week before he dies a most painful death, that is clear. Tell me where your father is, and perhaps I can stay that date."

Aria's blade faltered, and her eyes flickered briefly to Ryn, a living corpse wrapped in blankets. "Who are you?"

The stranger pulled up a chair from the desk in a corner, settling down and crossing his legs, putting his hands behind his head. Aria could see now that he was wearing a hood, a scarf pulled over his face. “Your father is Declan Fortunus.”

“What of it?”

“Where is he?”

Aria had had enough. Charging forward, she raised her sword and slashed downward. The stranger dove out of the way, and Aria whirled, searching for him on the ground. She found him standing at her brother’s bedside, holding a vial of green liquid over his face. He was wearing a black, hooded cloack, and a scarf of like color that covered his face. He tutted. “Endgame, sweetling.”

Aria’s fingers tightened over the grip of her sword, and her other hand clenched into a fist. The stranger waggled the vial, the fingers of his other hand fluttering pretentiously. “Sheath your sword, take me to your father, and perhaps I’ll put this away. Take another step, raise that sword again, and Declan Fortunus loses two children.”

Aria scowled a second time. “What is it that you want with Father?”

The stranger chuckled, his brilliant green eyes, like alchemist’s flame, shining brilliantly from beneath his hood. “Declan and I are……old friends. I’ve known him many a year before _you_ were born, at least.”

Aria blew a strand of hair out of her face, setting her jaw. “Horseshit. How come I’ve never seen you before?”

The stranger turned his acidic gaze to the liquid within the vial. “You cannot begin to imagine the length of time I have searched for your father.” He turned back to look at Aria. “I grow tired of your naivete.” The stranger let go of the vial.

Aria started forward, her face contorted. The stranger sighed and caught the tip of the vial between two fingers. Ryn turned slightly, murmuring in his sleep. Aria could have sworn the stranger was smiling from beneath his hood. She hastily sheathed her sword, swinging the sheath behind her waist and raising her hands. “I’ll do anything, I swear. Just….put whatever, whatever that is away.”

The figure rose, slipping the vial into the folds of his cloak, and waved a gloved hand. “Onward then, darling Fortuni. Take me to your father.”

Aria shot a glance at Ryn in his bed. "And who should I tell him has come calling?"

The stranger fluttered his fingers in the air, rubbing his index fingers and thumbs together gently, a recurring tic. "Ebero, my dear. Ebero Clemaine."

* * *

The name, of course, meant nothing to Aria, but she had nodded her head in acknowledgement nonetheless, fingering her sword nervously.

On their walk to Declan's study, Ebero drank in every minute detail: the limey smell of stone and decay, the spartan furnishings, the few scuttling servants in grey robes who passed with heads bowed and hands wrung. The overly confident swagger of the girl - as well as her full and curvaceous hips - that failed to hide the smell of her fear and uncertainty. The thin layer of dust and grime that had settled on near everything, from the walls to the floor to the paintings on the walls. Those Ebero found most fascinating. Most depicted the four-leafed clover, entwined by two silver adders, the crest of House Fortunus, or the stately figure of a man with a thick, silver beard and broad shoulders, a cape of silver scales wrapped around his shoulders. These Ebero took to be Declan. Three or four depicted his children of varying ages - the hardheaded, vivacious Aria, the stoic and impassive Tybalt, and the willowy, hazel-eyed Ryn, his skin pale and pockmarked from repeated illness. Nowhere to be found were the children's mother, which Ebero was surprised to see, or not see, he supposed. From his memory, Arandelle Fortunus had been a lovely woman, before her passing.

Aria remained silent, a fact Ebero found amusing. The girl struck him as one who was rarely at a loss for words. His performance at the child's sickbed seemed to have changed that. Though it had been many years since he had loved a woman, he found her sashay, so full of false bravado, an enticing sight. Her hair was as silver as her father's, her skin pale and smooth, her eyes a brilliant shining grey. All these thoughts he regarded with self-inflicted amusement. For many years now, Ebero had taken another lover, and a much more deadly and incoporeal one at that; thus he saw no reason to betray her now or forever. 

Aria turned to him, her arms crossed. They had reached the end of a long, stone hall, the floor carpeted by a great rug of green and silver. By now Ebero had deduced that the Fortuni's stronghold was a subterranean one, hidden beneath some sympathizer's manse. Ebero smiled at the thought of the silver snake hiding its coils this whole time right beneath the High Command's nose. 

"This is his study."

Ebero strode past her, brushing against her with one shoulder. She took a step back and scoffed, her hand reaching instinctively for her sword before drawing back. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her pulling her long, shining hair back into a knot, tapping her foot against the carpeted stone floor. 'Well then? What is it that you want?"

"A-a moment, child," he stammered impatiently. Aria pursed her lips.

Ebero Clemaine was a patient man, and an eloquent one. But now, standing so close to his goal, all his cleverness, all pretenses of civiliity and ego seemed to fall away. Beneath his scarf, he licked his lips, a bead of sweat rolling down his cheek. He reached out with a single gloved hand to the heavy oaken door before him, the shape of a clover carved into the wood. It opened with a creak. 

A hearth in the corner cast long, menacing shadows across the room. Ebero marveled at the sight. Shelf upon shelf of ancient tome, scrolls and manuscripts beyond counting, all stacked against and on top of each other within shelves three dozen feet high. A chandelier carved of pure silver hung from the ceiling high above. Alchemist's flame guttered and hissed from black sconces in the wall, and across the room he could see a gargantuan terrarium filled with a dozen snakes, all varying shades of silver, grey, and steel, their scales rippling over smooth bone and muscle. The whole room carried an ominous and forboding air, and another thing which Ebero knew all to well - the green, cloying scent of the plague.

He quickly turned and shut the door behind him. From the other side he could hear Aria pounding and yelling, the door shuddering beneath her weight. He paid her no heed, instead moving over to the fire, where a giant of a figure sat hunched in a great chair before it.

Ebero pulled the hood down from his head, unwrapping the scarf down from his nose and to his neck. The scars on his lips stretched taut still even as he smiled only slightly, and he pulled a glove off of his hand to run it over his pale, bald head. With silent tread he moved to and around the chair to greet the figure seated within.

Eyes that had perhaps once been a beautiful silver like his daughter's were now an ugly, dull grey, rheumy and laced with cataracts. Throbbing red boils stood out over his skin, his lips blue, cracked, and dry. Withered, gnarled hands clutched at the armrests of the great chair, and a frame that may have once been proud and hard now seemed weak and deflated in comparison. Lank, grimy hair hung in sweaty strands over his thin yellow skin, his breath hoarse and ragged. Even beneath a great silver cloak, he shivered intensely.

Ebero sat down before him, crossing his legs and smiling, his hands folded in his lap. Declan coughed, yellow phlegm dribbling from his parched lips. "So......you have...returned....to haunt me." He reached up slowly with a single hand to wipe at his mouth. "I suppose.....ghosts..... _are_ real then."

"I am no ghost. You know this as well as I."

Declan wheezed, his eyes squinted shut. A boil on his forehead popped, spewing yellow pus over his brow. Ebero realized that he was laughing. "You.....are a tricky.....bastard.....Ebero.....Clemaine. Always have been........and always....will be." 

Ebero smiled again, bowing his head slightly. Declan grimaced down on him. "Your words are kind."

"I suppose.....this.....sickness....is of your.....design.....correct? Marvelous......job, then........child......Caello........would be......very proud."

Ebero fluttered his pale, spidery fingers. "A trifle, compared to my best work." He dabbed at the lashes in his eye, upon which a speck of dust had settled. "You know what I seek."

Declan sunk further back into his chair, wheezing, as more phlegm issued from his lips. "I would....have thought......you'd have......discovered the secret......yourself.....by now.....child........obviously........Caello's........method......was.......sloppy......" A hand reached slowly and agonizingly into the folds of his shining cloak, and when it returned, a thin vial was clutched between his fingers. All that remained within were a few droplets of blue sludge. Ebero leaned forward, his fingers twitching, but Declan chuckled wetly and raised and wagged a single gnarled finger.

"After....all these.....years.....I thought.....there would.....come a day.....when.....I....could continue.....my work.....When Darkwill finally......abandoned......his backwards.....hatred......for our order.......but alas.....the Clover......Sage.......could find.......no.......luck......."

Ebero's acid-green eyes narrowed to slits. "You are all out."

Declan laughed again, blood and phlegm frothing at his lips. He hawked and spat it out into a silver pot at his feet, wincing. "You.....are a greedy.......and.......uninspired......soul......Ebero Clemaine.......much like.......your father........for......all his power........for all his gifts........he could never.......hope......to match.......my prowess......"

Ebero's fingers curled into claws. "You had best watch your tongue, old man."

Declan licked his lips. "Your.....threats......mean.....little......to me.....Clemaine.........your father's.........ghost.......still.......haunts you........as.....does that girl's.......I would........ expect......."

Ebero lept to his feet, his form silhoueted against the flame. "Speak another word and all three of your children will die alongside you."

Declan smiled, his teeth yellow and bloodstained. "Aria.......would......serve......you.......well......I.....would...... expect.......Ryn.....is too far gone....to be of use........but Tybalt.......has always.......been.......malleable..........Search.......your..........mind......Clemaine.......you.........would.......sooner......murder.......the.......Grand......General.......than one of.......my........children..........." He inspected the vial in his hands. "Such.......a silly thing.......really.........life..........the more time........we spend........trying to..........elongate.....it.......the less time........we....have.........to enjoy.......it..."

Ebero scowled, his scars forming an interlocking web across his face. "I have had enough of your ramblings, old man. You have little time left now. Give me the elixir, and I will be on my way."

Declan reached up with a single clawed hand, pulling his silver, scaled cloak tighter around him. He squeezed his eyes shut, raising the hand holding the near-empty vial.

"What are you doing?" A note of alarm crept into Ebero's voice.

With a motion like a catapault, Declan hurled the vial into the flame, giggling, blood dribbling down his chin. "NO!" Ebero shouted, diving into the flame, as the glass cracked and the blue droplets dissipated. Ebero screamed in agony as his hands burnt and his sleeves caught on fire, the flames hissing and roaring, casting shadows against his pale face. He scrambled out, swatting his burning sleeves against the stone at the foot of the hearth, his hands brown, cracked, and smoking. He turned to look up at Declan, his marred features contorted with rage and hatred. "You fool! What have you done!"

Declan smiled softly, the light in his eyes dimming. "Something......I should......have done.....a long......long.......time ago......"

Ebero clenched his right hand into a fist, screaming in pain as his fingernails bit into the burnt, raw flesh of his palm. 

Declan made a choking sound, his hands reaching up to his neck. Boils swelled and burst across his face, which turned a steadily darker shade of blue as the air was crushed from his lungs. He fell from his chair, the silver snakeskin sliding down atop him, lacking even the air to gasp and wheeze. Ebero sneered, climbing up to replace him in the seat.

Once he had found them, it had been a simple thing to introduce his plague. Servants sent out at night for food and supplies were easy to track, and it only took one to carry back the plague with him. From then on it was even simpler to observe Declan's rapid and agonizing descent into the terminal stages of his plague, an especially lethal, concentrated, and selectively infectious strain. The boy's sickness was unexpected, but that couldn't be helped.

Behind him, he could hear Aria continue to bang on the door, and the sound of a sword hacking into the thick, dark wood. As the last of Noxus's Grand Alchemists asphyxiated on the ground before him, Ebero Clemaine pulled up his hood and wound the scarf back over his face, staring intently into the flames. 


End file.
